


modern problems require ancient solutions (ie killing them)

by ClockWorkQueso



Series: time is short; love, everlasting (a soulmate timer au) [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, her hot take on hide, hint its not good, itll make sense if youve read the first chapter of the main work at least, part of my soulmate au, touka's pov, trying to dip my toes back into this au so i can finish writing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 05:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockWorkQueso/pseuds/ClockWorkQueso
Summary: Touka fumes about how life has put her ever-unfortunate best friend into another inescapable chokehold





	modern problems require ancient solutions (ie killing them)

Touka opens Anteiku earlier than usual the next morning, brimming with the kind of cold fury she hasn’t felt in a long, long time. It makes her mechanical, calculated. It isn't her usual brand of fire and brimstone, blazing eyes and flaring wing. It’s… more,  _ worse _ , twisting in her gut like sharp steel, like glacial ice. She doesn’t bother to temper it at all when Kaneki arrives, the  _ hello, good morning _ , dying in his throat when he senses her tension. 

There’s a cruel part of her that twinges with satisfaction when Kaneki heads straight to the backroom to change, avoiding her like the plague. 

It isn’t his fault, really, so maybe the cold shoulder is unwarranted. Once again, he’s the victim of unfortunate circumstances--wrong place, wrong time. Horrible outcome. She can’t be responsible for helping him pick up the pieces this time, though. He’s learned enough by now to know that there’s only one solution to this particular problem, and he should bite the bullet sooner rather than later. 

A smaller, even crueler part of herself latches onto the smidgeon of guilt that rears its head at that.  _ This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you. If you had just handled it yourself instead of running away. Kaneki is hurting and it’s your fault. Your fault. Your fault. _

Touka shakes her head once, dispelling the notion. It’s true, she might have been able to prevent this particular problem, but doing so would have created a mess of other issues that she wouldn’t even know how to begin solving.

An investigator soulmate is one thing, after all, but finding him dead at your best friend’s feet might be a touch worse, she thinks. Regardless, it now falls on Kaneki’s shoulders to bear that burden. An easy fix? To  _ her _ , maybe, but she’s never been fond of humans, let alone doves. Kaneki, even after how much he’s changed, still has that persistent bit of human in him. She knows he’s probably dreamt of a soulmate his entire life, knows from her time in highschool how much emphasis humans put on that kind of thing. Finding your soulmate, settling down, starting a family. How it’s all laid out for you, perfect and neat, happily ever after. Something to look forward to, something to really live for, right? With Kaneki’s childhood being what it was, he was probably desperate for that kind of life, that kind of unconditional love. 

Personally, Touka doesn’t put any stock into this soulmate business, and it’s not even being a ghoul that does it. Humans are so focused on their idyllic dreams of life that they tend to ignore the reality of the thing. They ignore the system’s faults--some people die before meeting their soulmate, some people end up hating their perfect match, some even get matched to more than one person, or not at all. Nothing is ever  _ perfect  _ in this shit world. Ghouls know better, and usually don’t bother with soulmates. From what she hears, the intrinsic connection is undeniable but manageable. And by manageable, she means one usually kills the other if they don’t want to bother with trying to get along. 

A lot of problems, Touka finds, can be solved by killing whatever’s bothering you. 

Case in point, Kaneki comes meandering in, looking worse for wear. Not that, you know, he ever looks exactly  _ chipper _ , anymore, but she can tell by the faraway look in his eyes as he preps his station that he’s got unsavory thoughts running their course. He looked so different just a handful of hours ago, more lively than he’d been in a long time, and now, it’s been snuffed out of him  _ again.  _ Another freezing wave of fury has her gripping the edge of the countertop. If only she had killed that dove when she had the chance, and then, then, maybe Kaneki wouldn’t be hurting like this. 

His expression last night, on the rooftop, as they gazed down at that blonde-headed simpleton snooping in the alleyway that she had already cleared out… that… longing, that desperate hope, bright and earnest and so much like when he was first getting used to being a ghoul, daring to be happy even as he suffered. 

His timer was ticking down, and down, and down,  _ Touka, you can handle him, I want to stay up here, in case--in case, _ he had said, freezing on the words, anticipation and adoration coating them like sickly sweet honey, catching in his throat.  _ Of course,  _ she had said, and leapt down behind the dove, piercing him and dodging him and cornering him until she could smell that someone else, another ghoul, playing dead, was after him too, and left before finishing the job, having faith that the other ghoul would be able to take the dove down as wounded as he was. 

She made it back to the rooftop just as Kaneki was sliding down the wall himself, kakugan eye blazing with something like determination, tearing the other ghoul out of the investigator's reach. For a few calm seconds, she assumed he merely wanted to break up the fight and make quick work of the dove himself, should he prove himself a threat, or let them both walk away relatively unscathed. She remembered thinking, _so much for staying underground--the CCG would have a field day if they knew that Eyepatch was active in the ward. _And then, she watched as the dove hung in his grasp, at his mercy, and… nothing. Nothing until another damned investigator- Mado’s spawn- almost took his head off, and then he was crawling back up the wall and collapsing into her arms, shaking like a leaf. 

His soulmate, a human, but not only that, an investigator? Neither of them could go and kill him now, now that he was being carted off to the ambulance, but she wanted desperately to hit something. When she had mentioned it though, the idea of killing him, freeing him from this pain, he begged her not to, to let him live, at least for now. For what? To prolong to inevitable? For him to come hunt Kaneki down first?  _ I need him _ , he had said, just that, nothing more, so small and broken that Touka had listened. 

  
_ It’s fucking unfair _ , she thinks viciously, had mumbled into his snowy hair. It’s something she’s always known and expected, since she was a child, but it keeps hitting Kaneki over and over and over because he allows himself to  _ hope _ . It’s so much harder to hurt someone when they feel like they have nothing, but even Kaneki, who’s suffered so much, keeps finding new things to lose. 

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO hi! sorry i planned on using this summer to really get into the writing spirit, but my life has pretty much gone terribly downhill since finals and I've been left floundering ever since. this is both a vent piece and a way to jog my brain into writing again. I can elaborate more in the notes of the main story when i start posting again but for now ill leave you with this! thanks as always for reading and I really appreciate all the kudos and comments and views ive gotten even in this downtime. yall are the best and i love you!


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